Kookaburra Phantom 2017 hockey stick review

I’m totally in love with the new Kookaburra Lbow 1.0 shape, I’m thinking of straightening out my Malik and re-bending it at this position instead.

Luckily Kookaburra have saved me the trouble and as soon as I tried the Phantom for my review, I knew my next stick has to have this bow shape.

Slightly higher than most low bows, slightly lower than a mid bow, the Kookaburra Phantom’s Lbow 1.0 review has a nice big curve of 24.75mm at, wait for it, 265mm up from the heel.

It is weird, it feels like a midbow when you slap with it, it feels like a low bow when you dribble. My Malik’s curve was at 280 and it was great but a little to flat at the bottom to keep up with my dubious dribbling skills.

The Kookaburra Phantom hockey stick just gives that little extra control. That’s not all to review about the Kookaburra Phantom hockey stick, which Kookaburra seem to have put some real effort in to in 2017 after perhaps lagging behind a bit in the last couple of years.

Have you have a ‘light’ Kookaburra hockey stick before and found it was, well, not light? They seem to have sorted this out with the Phantom which is not crazy light like the ‘Ultralite’ models, but is certainly on par with other brands light sticks.

Combined with the low bow position, I found the weight really helped with ball control when dribbling at speed.

I like this combination as I play as quite a defensive midfielder. I need to be able to take on players going forward, slap the ball around across the back line and also be sure enough with my stick for defensive duties.

Kookaburra Phantom really worked well in all these areas. It’s not full carbon, only 85% and compared to full carbon sticks I’ve played with recently I guess you can notice the Kookaburra Phantom is slightly less powerful. However, I didn’t really miss it, how often in a game do you actually get to smash ten bells out of the ball?

It could be the case that I am overly positive with my review of the Kookaburra Phantom because of the style, what a beauty. The matt black design is really attractive and the clear handle of the Kookaburra Phantom would actually make me feel a little sad for covering it with a dirty wrap!

Personally I’m a fan of Kookaburra’s reverse edge reinforcement, which does give a nice bounce on the back hand hits. The silly rough surface on the face will rub off quick like it always does but the Phantom comes with it as standard.

All in all it’s a great review of the Kookaburra Phantom from me. Looks good, the shaft shape is great for any in-betweeners like me and now it really is light, it balances great.